As the final buzzer sounded, Emanuel Sharp dropped to a crouch and buried his head in his hands. Chaos unfolded around him. The once-tense Alamodome had erupted into a celebration. The Florida marching band played a triumphant tune. Orange and blue confetti rained down on the court.
Overwhelmed with emotion, the 6-foot-3 guard stayed frozen in the same position, right by where he had turned over the ball in the waning moments of the national championship game. Trailing 65-63 with 19 seconds left, Houston coach Kelvin Sampson had drawn up a play that included an action for Sharp, the team’s best shooter. Sharp started the possession on the left block before sprinting through an elevator screen near the top of the key. Briefly springing free, he received a pass from teammate L.J. Cryer a few steps behind the three-point line. But as Sharp rose to launch what could have been the game-winning jumper, Florida guard Walter Clayton Jr. rushed out to challenge the attempt. With his shooting window closed, Sharp simply let go of the ball and watched it bounce (had he touched it, he would have been called for traveling) as the remaining seconds ticked off the clock. “If I had to do it over again, I’d run the same play,” Sampson tells Hoops HQ. “Maybe we do one or two things differently, but that’s not the way life works.”
Sharp, who also committed a turnover on the Cougars’ second-to-last possession, was crushed. Teammates rushed over to console him, as did Clayton. Of course, had it not been for Sharp, who was MVP of the Big 12 Tournament and the Most Outstanding Player of the Midwest Regional, Houston would have never been on that stage in the first place. “We don’t play the blame game here,” adds Sampson. “I love all of my players unconditionally, no matter what. I think that rubs off on them in just about everything we do. Emanuel is a tough kid. He knows that life is not about five seconds. It’s about everything.”
Still, in the immediate aftermath of the loss, it was hard to think about anything else. Sharp was bombarded with nasty emails, calls, texts and social-media messages, many of them from disgruntled gamblers. “It was tough,” Sharp says. “A lot of people DMing me, commenting, just a whole bunch of negativity was thrown my way. It sucked because it was kind of hard not to look at it.” He temporarily deactivated his Instagram account and relied on his family, coaches and teammates for support. To further escape the noise and get away from basketball for a bit, he went on vacation with close friends Ramon Walker Jr. and Jamal Shead.
“He’s got a great support system that understands the game and what goes into it,” says Derrick Sharp, Emanuel’s father. “He’s grounded. He knows that life is not over. It’s a game at the end of the day. You go out there, you play your hardest and you live with the results. And if it’s not the result that you wanted, then you got something to shoot for the next day or the next year.”
Sharp and the Cougars are aiming to finally get over the hump this year and claim the program’s first NCAA title. Previous standouts L.J. Cryer and J’Wan Roberts are gone, but Houston retained three starters — Sharp, 6-foot-4 senior guard Milos Uzan and 6-foot-8 junior forward Joseph “JoJo” Tugler — and added the nation’s No. 3-ranked recruiting class, per 247Sports. Expectations are higher than ever; Houston was picked as the favorite to win the Big 12, receiving 14 of 16 first-place votes in the annual preseason poll, and will open the season as the No. 2 team in the country. “We’re missing one more trophy and that’s it,” says Sharp. “I want to win a championship.”
After taking some time to “grieve the loss” to Florida, Sharp has refocused all of his energy on that goal. The flood of negativity directed at him during the offseason was counteracted by constant words of encouragement from loved ones. The flow of hateful messages has decreased significantly, although Sharp still gets some to this day. “I don’t care anymore,” he says. “It’s over. I’m on to better things.”
Overall, he handled the adversity with impressive maturity, refusing to let it define or derail him. As Houston assistant coach Kellen Sampson previously told Hoops HQ, “nobody had the weight on his shoulders quite like Emanuel starting April 8 (the day after the championship game), but probably no one is more built to handle the brunt of that better than Emanuel.”
Emanuel’s parents, Derrick and Justine Ellison, both played professional basketball. In 15 years with the Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv, Derrick won 13 national league championships and two EuroLeague titles. Justine also enjoyed a decade-long career in Israel after starring at the University of Toronto in the mid-1990s. Drawing on their own experiences, Derrick and Justine taught Emanuel not only how to play the game, but also how to manage its inevitable highs and lows. “He’s been groomed to handle adversity,” Derrick says. “I’ve always talked to him about failing and being able to meet the challenge, never give up and keep your eye on the main goal.”
From his first day as a Cougar, Sharp was fighting an uphill battle. Before his senior year of high school at Bishop McLaughlin in Tampa, he suffered a horrific leg injury during an open practice, breaking his fibula and dislocating his ankle. He graduated ahead of schedule and joined the Cougars at the end of December 2021 while still in the early stages of his recovery.
“When I got here, I was injured and overweight, so I was at ground zero,” he says. “As much adversity as I’ve been through since I’ve been here, it doesn’t get lower than that. So just knowing that I’ve always been working uphill from there, it’s kept me level-headed. I’ve already been to the bottom, so there’s only one way (to go) and that’s up.”
Working primarily with Alan Bishop and John Houston — the director of sports performance and associate AD for sports medicine, respectively — Sharp attacked his rehab with discipline and toughness. His approach further validated to the staff that he was built for Houston’s unique culture. “That’s usually a tell-tale sign for coaches how they handle their business in other areas,” says Sampson. “Because how you do anything is how you do everything in this program.”
Sharp has fit in perfectly with the program ever since. He has improved each season of his four-year run, beginning as the sixth man, earning a starting spot and then blossoming into one of the Cougars’ centerpieces. In 2024-25, Sharp averaged 12.6 points, 3 rebounds and 1.4 steals and shot a career-high 40.7 percent from behind the arc. He scored at least 16 points in six of nine playoff outings and was Houston’s most reliable perimeter defender, often tasked with guarding the opposing team’s best player. In the national title game, he helped limit Clayton to just 11 points on 3-of-10 shooting.
Despite the explosion of the transfer portal, Sharp has never considered leaving. “No program is everybody’s cup of tea, but this is his,” says Sampson. “He loves this program. He believes in this program. He’s the embodiment of Cougar basketball.” Following in the footsteps of former program stalwarts like Marcus Sasser, Jamal Shead and J’Wan Roberts, Sharp is set to spend his entire college career at Houston. He is now the unquestioned leader of the Cougars — a responsibility that he is not taking lightly, especially given the enormous potential of this year’s roster.
With Sharp, Uzan and Tugler back, Houston has one of the country’s strongest returning cores. Throw in a loaded crop of freshmen headlined by three consensus five-star prospects — 6-foot-10 center Chris Cenac Jr., 6-foot-6 wing Isiah Harwell and 6-foot-3 point guard Kingston Flemings — and the Cougars are among the top candidates to cut down the nets in Indianapolis.
Sharp was named to the preseason All-Big 12 Team and is expected to contend for All-American honors. “It’s just really gratifying to see a kid come in where he was — almost pushed to the side, doing his rehab when nobody was around, and it was painful and long — and now here he is as one of the best guards in the country,” says Sampson.
Since players reported in June, Sharp has been a model of consistency for the newcomers. He has found his leadership style, striking the right balance between encouraging his teammates and getting on them when necessary. On the court, he has flashed more confidence as a playmaker and scorer. He will assume a larger on-ball role with Cryer gone, assisting Uzan in quarterbacking the offense while retaining his critical defensive assignments. The staff has been pushing him to improve in three areas to reach his ceiling: shot selection, decision making and rebounding. How much Sharp elevates his game will be a huge factor in determining if the Cougars can avenge last season’s heartbreak and climb to the mountaintop.
While the 2025 championship game still pops into his head from time to time, Sharp isn’t dwelling on the past. With so much to look forward to, he sees no reason to keep looking back. As the 2025-26 campaign nears, the despair of last April has been fully replaced by excitement and optimism.
“It really sucked that we got so close but didn’t come out on top,” says Sharp. “But it happens. It’s life. You’re not always going to get exactly what you want. The good thing is that we have another chance. I get to come back and take another crack at it.”
